BLAZE
A Stone Mountain Mystery
Kristina Stanley
BLAZE
A Stone Mountain Mystery #2
Copyright © 2015 by Kristina Stanley. All Rights Reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. And any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead (or in any other form), business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
www.KristinaStanley.com
FIRST EDITION Kindle eBook
Imajin Books — www.imajinbooks.com
October 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77223-102-1
Cover designed by Ryan Doan — http://www.ryandoan.com
Praise for BLAZE
“Filled with entertaining characters and as fast-paced as the conflagration that gives Blaze its title.” —Joan Barfoot, Scotia Giller Prize and Trillium Book Award shortlisted author
“Evil in a beautiful landscape—Blaze is an inferno of action and tension.
Its sizzling plot will keep you guessing until the end.” —Phyllis Smallman, award-winning author of the Sherri Travis murder mysteries
“Kristina Stanley’s latest novel, Blaze, is a fast-paced, hang-on-to-your-seat kind of mystery that will keep you reading until the wee hours of the morning.” —R. J. Harlick, author of the Meg Harris Mysteries
“Gripping action scenes and an engaging heroine make BLAZE a terrific read. Great insight into the risks and dangers of outdoor life by an author who’s been there. The forest fire fighting scenes are especially vivid. Don’t miss this!” —M. H. Callway, Arthur Ellis Finalist, Best First Novel
For my parents Liliana and David, who provide endless love, support and motivation.
Acknowledgements
Mathew, the love of my life, is the person I need to thank first.
A heartfelt thanks goes to my friends for life who read, reread, commented and commented again: Liliana Conn, Michael Conn, Adrienne Cristelli, Janice Janczyn, Sue Kreiling, Debi Sarandrea and Libby Simon.
A burning thank you to Calgary firefighters extraordinaire, Chris Ganzewinkel, Billy Stewart.
For expert advice in their fields, thank you to Dr. Rama Behki, Jeff Dodge, George Duncan, Derrick Francis, and Tony Trimble.
I would like to thank Humber School for Writers through which I received feedback from Joan Barfoot and Mary Gaitskill, and Garry Ryan for his support and mentorship through Crime Writers of Canada.
And of course, thank you to Cheryl Kaye Tardif and Imajin Books for believing in me.
Somewhere in this book is a hidden “Easter Egg,” a link to 3 FREE Qwickie novellas by 3 bestselling authors. This is a time limited offer, so happy reading and hunting!
CHAPTER ONE
Instead of exchanging wedding vows in front of friends and family, Kalin Thompson prepared her home for evacuation. A forest fire encroached on the single road between Stone Mountain Resort and Holden, British Columbia, threatening to isolate the resort and the community who lived twelve hundred meters above sea level.
Kalin removed a suitcase from her bedroom closet and tossed it on her sleigh bed, but before she had a chance to open the lid, her cell rang.
“You’ve ten minutes. After that, you have to leave,” Ben Timlin said.
She smiled at the confidence in her fiancé’s voice. “I’ll be ready. Be careful. Okay?”
“Don’t worry about me. Hang on a sec.”
His muffled voice reached her, but she couldn’t make out his words.
“You have to get out of there now,” Ben said.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“This isn’t official, but…”
“But what?”
“The chief thinks the fire might have been started on purpose.”
“Why would someone—”
“The fire started at the construction site of our new home.”
Kalin’s skin prickled on the back of her neck. She eyed the doors and windows, all the ways an intruder could get into their home. “You think we were the target?”
“I don’t know. Just be careful. Go to a motel and don’t tell anyone where you are.”
Chica padded across the carpet, wagged her tail and licked Kalin’s hand. If a stranger was near the house, the yellow Labrador would let her know.
Kalin disconnected and took a few deep breaths. Some unknown person would not intimidate her. She would gather the things she cherished, and she would ready the house. Then, and only then, would she take off.
She packed her wedding dress, white stilettos and lace veil. Two days previously, the fire department had issued an alert, and Kalin and Ben postponed their wedding. Ben, fighting alongside the ground crew, creating a fire barrier, working to save everything important to them made her proud. She took another deep breath, told herself to control her emotions and continued packing. He’ll be fine.
She fingered the wooden bench carved by her estranged brother, too large to take, and hoped it would be there when she returned. Her road bike and Ben’s downhill mountain bike were strapped to the roof racks of her Jeep Cherokee. Dog food and water claimed half of the backseat.
Needing to prepare the outdoors, she put on her hiking boots, entered the garage and dug out two garden hoses from behind a row of firewood. She connected one hose to a tap on the garage wall, poured water into the garbage cans and left them where a firefighter could find them.
She leaned a ladder against the outside of the house, climbed to the roof and nailed a sprinkler to the shingles. She searched the surrounding forest, looking for signs of an intruder, unsure if the adrenaline rush making her pulse race was from climbing onto the roof or from fear of being attacked. With the sprinkler in place, she secured the second hose, dropped one end to the ground, followed it down the ladder and attached the hose to an exterior tap, ready if the fire got too close.
She hurried inside and filled the bathtub and sinks with water, emptied the fridge and loaded a cooler. Unable to resist, she washed her breakfast dishes, refilled the sink and wiped the counters. Their home was only a rental, but she’d shared the one-bedroom suite with Ben for fourteen months. After one final glance, she ignored the sadness inside her and shut the front door. She carried her computer and suitcase to her Jeep and called for Chica.
Kalin opened the rear door, but before Chica jumped in, a rabbit dashed across the driveway. Chica bolted, following the scent into the forest. Not now. No matter how many times she called, Chica would not return without the rabbit.
She dumped her computer and suitcase onto the front seat, grabbed Chica’s leash and took off after her. She sprinted up the hill behind her house, knowing she couldn’t catch up with her dog but needing to try. Even though the fire hadn’t arrived in her part of the forest, thick smoke weaved through the trees, entering her lungs and making her cough.
Her cell rang again.
“Are you on your way to town?” Ben asked.
“Not yet.”
“The evacuation order�
�s been given. You need to leave now.”
Between deep breaths, Kalin said, “Chica took off.”
“Where are you?”
Kalin coughed again, and her lungs stung. “I’m almost at the top of the hill behind our place. I can’t find her.”
“Leave her. The fire jumped the river. It’ll reach the road soon.”
“I can’t go without her.”
“Listen to me. It’s windy. The forest is dry. The fire’s moving fast. Chica will find her own way out. For once, don’t be so stubborn.” Ben had graduated from boot camp in Merritt, British Columbia, and was the captain of the Stone Mountain volunteer fire department. He knew what he was talking about so she should listen to him, but taking orders was not one of her strengths.
The taste of ash stuck to her tongue, and she spit. “I can’t leave her. Five minutes. If I can’t find her by then, I’ll go.”
“No—”
Kalin disconnected. When the phone rang again, she said sorry to the photo of Ben on the display. He was smiling, his coffee eyes crinkled at the sides, his cropped hair flattened from recently removing his ski helmet. She didn’t answer.
She checked her watch and set the alarm. She struggled to see through the smoke, and the fire’s heat warmed her. She called Chica. A flash of yellow fur caught her eye, and she darted left. At one hundred and forty pounds, Kalin was all muscle, and she used that muscle to chase Chica.
Kalin reached the crest and had a clear view of the fire. The firefighters no longer held it on the southeast side of the river away from the resort. Her heart pounded at the thought of Ben close to the flames. A heli-tanker dropped water along the flanks of the blaze. The sizzle of water hitting fire didn’t reach her, but the steam rising from the trees meant they’d hit a hot spot.
She’d used up three minutes. Come on, Chica. Where are you?
From her vantage point, the flames appeared dangerously close to the upper village. The first building in the fire’s path was the conference center. Flames moved toward the building decorated for Kalin and Ben’s wedding, inching closer to burning the tables graced with bouquets of spring flowers and place settings arranged on top of white tablecloths. She wanted to weep.
Four minutes gone.
Chica barked, and Kalin sprinted further along a deer track in one last effort to find her precious dog. A branch snagged her cheek, drawing a line of blood across her skin beneath her green eye. The skin beneath her brown eye remained unmarred. She ducked and rounded a tree.
The alarm on her watch beeped.
Time was up.
She wanted Chica but squashed the urge to keep searching and headed for home. Every few steps, she shouted Chica’s name. Her stomach cramped. She ignored the nausea and forced herself to keep running. She slipped and slid down the hill, dodging lodge-pole pine trees and snapping dry twigs with her feet.
At the back of her house, Kalin stopped and turned in a circle. She cast her eyes from one place in the forest to another, searching for Chica. Thicker smoke blew in, darkening the sky. She heard crackling. It could be flames burning trees, or it could be Chica running through underbrush.
Her cell rang for the fourth time. Because of trembling fingers, she almost dropped the phone when she pulled it from her pocket.
“It’s Nora.”
“An evacuation order’s been issued. Where are you?” Kalin’s throat burned when she spoke.
“Home, but I need help. I’m in labor. My water broke.”
* * *
“The fire’s heading toward the upper village,” the incident commander told Ben.
“I’m on it.” Ben needed to reallocate resources. He dreamt of becoming the fire chief, and how he led his team would show up on his record. He’d made captain at twenty-eight, turned thirty-one a couple of months before Kalin and wanted to make her proud by moving his career forward. The incident command center operated from the Stone Mountain firehall, and he planned to impress the senior team.
He tried Kalin’s cell, but it forwarded to voicemail. Don’t do this to me. “Get on the road, then call me.”
A road divided Stone Mountain Resort into an upper and lower village, narrow enough the fire could jump from one side to the other. The firefighters could try to alter the course of the blaze away from the expensive real estate of the upper village if they soaked the area, but it meant increased danger to the older condos crammed in the lower village.
The Stone Mountain firefighters had joined the provincial forest firefighters in the battle to control the inferno. Their lifestyles, their homes were at stake. None of them questioned whether to risk their lives for the sake of the resort. Saving lives and property was ingrained in every one of them, even those who had not fought a fire before.
One group of nine firefighters lined a natural break in front of a stand of trees and with the aid of bulldozers, dug a trench. They removed enough roots, dirt and brush to create a forty-meter-long ditch. A second group worked a trench further to the east.
Grey smoke blocked Ben’s view of the approaching fire and of the men and women around him. Black smoke would be rising from the densest flames. He turned off his bulldozer and the roar of burning trees replaced the roar of the engine. “Where’s Jason?”
“Over here, Captain.” Jason Tober was Stone Mountain’s snowmaking manager. He spent winters creating snow on the mountain and summers working construction for a local company.
“The commander asked us to soak the upper village perimeter. It’s time to get the snowmaking system going.” At full pressure, the seventy snow-guns sprayed eighteen hundred gallons of water an hour and might be enough to save the resort.
Jason hopped off his bulldozer. He pushed his helmet back on his forehead, and his dirty blond hair rounded under the edges, longer than the firefighter’s regulations allowed but not long enough to be reprimanded for. “I’ll need help. What about the golf course sprinklers?”
“Already on, but they’re not close enough to the hotels.” Ben and his team were on the east side of the resort. The golf course extended from the west side and into the subdivision where he lived with Kalin. The golf course sprinklers might help the homes along Black Bear Drive, but they wouldn’t do much for the resort.
“It’ll take over an hour, and I’ll need two people.”
“I’ll come. I don’t think we can spare anyone else.” Ben radioed the incident command center and asked them to send help to the pump house. There was no one free.
“Do we have an hour?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know.”
Ben and Jason left the team digging trenches and drove off in Ben’s Ford F-150, lurching over rugged terrain. Ben’s knuckles were white by the time they reached the pump house. They ran to the entrance and found the door locked.
“Crap. My key’s at home,” Jason said.
Ben ran back to his truck and grabbed an axe. He swung the axe and cracked the door. He kicked the splintered wood out of the way. They entered the building, and Jason started to power-up the snowmaking system. The musty smell of the room was a change from the acrid smell of burning debris.
“Did Cindy get to Holden?” Ben and Kalin hung out with Jason and his wife. He trusted Jason. He worked hard, but his lack of hands-on firefighting experience made Ben nervous. With one year on the department, Jason hadn’t fought a major fire. He should have been standing beside Ben as his best man, not standing with grime and soot covering his face and hiding his freckles.
“She did. They closed the front desk, and she was evacuated with her department. What about Kalin?”
“Not yet. Chica ran away, and Kalin’s searching for her.” Ben ignored Jason’s look of concern. She’s okay. I know she’s okay. “How do you want to do it?” Ben moved toward the snow-guns.
Jason pointed to the industrial strength sprinklers stored at the back of the room. “Forget the guns. We’ll use the sprinklers. They’re designed for fire fighting. The guns won’t provide enough volume.”
<
br /> A map of the ski runs filled one wall. Snow-gun placement for the winter season marked its surface. Jason cleared the board and with an erasable marker he put new location tags around the village. “If we place sprinklers here, here and here, we should be able to soak the surrounding terrain. The fire’s coming from this direction,” he pointed east, “so we need a barrier along this side.”
“What about a perimeter around the lower village?”
“There aren’t any water hook-ups there.”
Ben pointed at the layout on the whiteboard. “How long will that take us?”
“Forty-five minutes to get the water pressure up to three hundred pounds. Then we have to get the hoses and sprinklers deployed. That’ll take another half an hour.”
Tension caused Ben’s neck and shoulder muscles to cramp. He rolled his head, and his neck cracked. “That might not be fast enough.”
“There’re two hundred gallons of water in the truck along with a pump. If the fire gets too close to any of the buildings before we get the sprinklers going, we can use that,” Jason said.
“Is that enough water to hold off the fire?”
“Probably not.”
After the system powered up to full capacity, Ben helped Jason place the fifty pound sprinklers around the upper village. Hard physical labor and determination got them through the process in less than twenty-five minutes.
Jason turned the wheel.
* * *
“I’m on my way,” Kalin said to Nora.
She yelled Chica’s name until she reached her Jeep. On the other side of the resort, flames and smoke shot toward the sky. Nestled between two peaks in the Purcell Mountains, Stone Mountain was eighteen kilometers west of Holden. In all other directions, hundreds of kilometers of unpopulated forest surrounded the resort, providing endless fuel to keep the fire burning.
Blaze (A Stone Mountain Mystery Book 2) Page 1
